Re: Are tanru really metaphors?

[Ronald Hale-Evans <rwhe@APOCALYPSE.ORG>]

At 2:21 PM -0500 12/5/97, Robert Chassell wrote:

>... how to express kennings in Lojban, such as "flame of battle" for
>"sword"...
>
>One solution is mentioned in chapter 13 of the refgram:
>
>    Alone among the cmavo of selma'o UI, {pe'a} has a rafsi, namely
>    {pev}.  This rafsi is used in forming figurative (culturally
>    dependent) lujvo, whose place structure need have nothing to do
>    with the place structure of the components.
>
>Perhaps:  pevjamnafagri         figurative-war-type-of-fire/flame
>or        pevdambafagri         figurative-fighter-type-of-fire/flame
>
>Another solution would be prefix all your utterances with {pe'a}, thus
>telling listeners to interpret what follows figuratively.
>
>
>    pe'a      PEhA  start figurative
>                      start figurative (non-literal) speech/text
>
>    po'a      POhA  end figurative
>                      end figurative (non-literal) speech/text

Thanks, Bob! These are both great suggestions, and neatly solve my problem.
I haven't made it that far in the refgram yet. (I'm using a hardcopy of the
refgram from the website. I hope the "real" refgram -- please send 'em
soon, Lojbab -- has an index so we can look up key terms like "figurative
language".)

I thought of another possible solution. How's this? "le jamnafagri" means
"that which I describe as a battle-flame". Does this do the trick or does
it imply possible duplicity or arbitrariness?

Incidentally, I don't mean to correct my Lojban betters (even if I could),
but isn't the full 5-letter rafsi only used at the end of a lujvo? If so,
then aren't "[pev]jamnafagri" and "[pev]dambafagri" illegal lujvo, because
they use "jamna" and "damba"?

Ron

Ron Hale-Evans...The Not Ready For Apocalypse Players...rwhe@apocalypse.org
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